Facebook Retains Title as Most Visited Website

As of now, consumers spend more time browsing in social networks or social media sites, the most popular one being Facebook, than any other category of websites. Twenty percent of the total time spent online through the use of PCs and 30 percent spent online via mobiles devices is used for social media, according to Nielsen’s NM Incite’s current Social Media Report.

Facebook was launched in February 2004 and is operated and owned by Facebook Inc. Currently, Facebook is still the most visited, most popular social media site in the United States both through its desktop app and through mobile devices. The site is also number one among web brands in the U.S. in terms of time spent. It turns out that 17 percent of the total time consumed online through the use of personal computers is through Facebook, according to the same study.

The study also showed that the total time consumed on social media across mobile devices and personal computers in the U.S. elevated to 37 percent to about 121 billion minutes compared to the figures during July 2011. The increase was aided by the latest conception of connectivity and mobile devices, the findings said.

Facebook is still the most visited website. (Image: marcopako (CC) via Flickr)

Facebook is still the most visited website. (Image: marcopako (CC) via Flickr)

A lot of people using tablets and smartphones use their capabilities in accessing social media sites. A little less than about a half (about 46 percent) of all the social media users commented that one of the things they use their smartphones for is to access social media, while some 16 percent said that they use tablets to connect to social media sites.

Both Facebook and Twitter have persisted to being the most popular and most visited social networks, while Pinterest rose as one of the breakout sites in the social media world for 2012. Furthermore, Pinterest also boasted the largest year-over-year augmentation in both the unique users and the time consumed using any social network or social media across personal computers, mobile apps and the mobile Web. Pinterest is a pinboard-style photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage them-based image collections such as interests, events, hobbies and more. The site is found by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. The site is currently being managed by Cold Brew Labs and is funded by a small group of inventors and entrepreneurs.

The findings also show that how the consumers react and treat the advertising efforts and banners displayed in social media is still changing and evolving. Though roughly about a third of the consumers of the social media see advertisements such as banners and video commercials (YouTube, for example) in social media websites as more irritating than any other category of advertising in the Internet, a research suggests that there are still some other opportunities for the online marketers to interact with the consumers through the use of social media.

Findings of this research show that more than one-fourth of the consumers in social media give more attention to advertisements that are promoted by their social connections, and more than one-fourth of the respondents said that social media and social networking ads do not annoy them.
Consumer views on customer service is also being transformed by social media and social networking sites, with about half of the consumers from the U.S. reaching out directly to service providers and brands to express their satisfaction, ask questions, complain, etc. through social media. The findings show that one in three users prefer using social media over telephones for customer service issues.